Dead Girl Walking ― Aaron Minyard

40. i will wait

now i'll be bold
as well as strong
and use my head alongside my heart
― mumford & sons

[trigger warnings: throwing up]

♦

THEY DIDN'T TALK ABOUT IT ON NEW YEAR'S DAY. They didn't talk about it the day after, or the day after that. The ghost of that conversation lingered, but they both ignored it, as if it was a thing that could be pushed aside without repercussion.

Their flight was nonstop, just a little over two hours. Mara and Aaron sat next to each other, silent as the plane took off. Silent as the seatbelt sign clicked off, as Nicky settled in for a nap on Aaron's other side.

It was Mara who finally broached the topic, who finally bit the bullet and tasted the lead. "What are we going to do when we get back?"

Aaron's hand, which had been clasped in hers since takeoff, stiffened for the briefest of moments. It took a second for him to open his mouth, another for him to manage words. "I don't know." He stared ahead. "Andrew will do whatever it takes to keep us apart."

"I know," Mara said, because it was something she'd known and grappled with since he dropped the bomb that he knew. "So... what'll happen?"

Mara counted the seconds until they turned into minutes. That was how long it took for Aaron to say, so quietly she barely heard him over the cabin's ambiance, "We can stop." She watched his Adam's apple shift as he swallowed. "We should stop."

"Do you want to stop?" Mara asked, and found herself deeply afraid of the answer.

"No," he said immediately. "I—I want this." He looked down at their hands, then met her eyes. "I want you. But it's not fair to ask you do deal with my baggage. It wasn't fair the first time around—it's definitely not now."

"Nothing in my life has ever been fair," Mara reminded him. "I can deal with that."

"You shouldn't have to," he insisted.

"It would be worth it," she said.

"Why?" He asked it like he couldn't fathom an answer, like he couldn't fathom anyone fighting for him.

Mara wondered if anyone ever had, then realized the answer was the exact problem they were dealing with.

"Because in the end, I'd have you," Mara whispered. "I'll endure Andrew's snide comments and threats if it means I get to have you at the end of it."

"He'll give you hell until we graduate," Aaron reminded her. "That's three and a half years, Mara."

"Then I'll wait," Mara said.

"I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not asking," Mara told him. "I'll wait until you tell me not to anymore."

"What if you get tired of waiting?" he asked.

Mara swallowed. "This... this is the first thing I've ever had that's worth fighting for," she said, the confession hanging in the air like the ghosts of words they weren't quite ready to say out loud. "So I'll do just that for as long as you'll let me."

Aaron stared at her for a moment, and she wondered if he was searching for signs of a lie, for any hint that she didn't mean what she said. He wouldn't find anything, she knew.

When he realized that, too, he leaned over and kissed her.

It was neither desperate nor soft, a strange in-between that made Mara's stomach flare with warmth even as her chest sank with dread.